I met wi' my wife,
And the thyme it is withered and rue is in prime."

"'Tis an up-country tune," I answered in words, but my thought was one
of wonderment that a man who had just planned and set on foot the
taking of another's life should be so gay and could talk so
interestedly on trivial affairs.

Whatever other faults may be mine, indirectness of speech nor a
slothful gait when something has to be done were never accredited to
me, and I determined to let the duke know exactly what I had heard, as
well as my opinion of him in the business which he had stirred up.
Turning toward him, with no introduction to the matter whatever, I
said:

"Your grace, I am a man old enough to be your father; something of a
philosopher and a dreamer, who has let the current of this world's
affairs swim by him unnoted for many years--another, more dependent on
present issues, might hesitate to speak to a man of such power as
yourself in the manner which I have planned to do; but I would forever
lose my own self-respect, which I state honestly is of far greater
value to me than any opinion which you or another may have of me, if at
this time I failed to be open with you. I was an unintentional observer
of the scene which just occurred between you and Mr. Carmichael--one in
which, to my thinking, you showed to monstrous poor advantage."

If he had denied, or stormed, or affected a hurt honor at the words,
they would have but fallen in with the idea I had of him. He did none
of these; but, turning, said to me openly and as one in no wise
affronted:

"I hate the man for the best reason on earth, Lord Stair."

"And is it your way to try to kill all you hate?"

"Oh, no," he answered, "it is not often necessary."

I can not set down the ease with which he spoke, for it seemed to me
that I was listening to some theatric person behind the foot-lights
making a speech to the pit rather than to a man who was as earnest as a
man could well be.

"The truth at the root of the whole trouble is that Mr. Carmichael and
I have the misfortune to love the same woman.

"I have wanted for some time to have a private talk with you, Lord
Stair," he continued. "If your time is at your command, will you do me
the honor to have a bottle of wine with me at the Red Cock, where we
can talk with something more of ease?"

Ten minutes from that we were seated by a window of the inn, the duke
on one side of a table with a bottle of his own, I on the oth